Call for Proposals

You can read the most salient portions of the call for proposals below.

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Intersections of Strategy Processes and Strategy Practices

In a fast changing global economy there is an increasing need to understand how strategic decisions are made, how strategy emerges in an organization in practice, who gets involved in strategy processes and how strategy changes over time. It is more and more important to bring together varying perspectives of strategy processes and strategy practices to advance the practice of strategy. The emerging interest in the practice perspective to strategic management during the past decade makes it particularly interesting for us to reflect on the intersections between the process and practice perspectives of strategic management. By doing this our further aim is to link these two research streams to the recent developments in the fields of managerial and organization cognition, organizational and management innovations, and dynamic capabilities and strategic agility.

The Strategic Management Society brings together scholars, executives, and innovation policymakers in advancing the state of the art research and practice in a unique mini-conference organized for the first time in Finland.

CONFERENCE THEME TRACKS

TRACK A: Intersections of Strategy Process and Strategy Practice Research

Strategy process and strategy practice research areas have evolved as separate research streams during the past decade. This has provided a major boost to both research areas, but it now also provides an exciting opportunity to take stock and look back to see what the intersections between these areas are. In this topic area, we address the following questions: What are the intersections of strategy process and strategy practice research? What are the future research directions in these two areas? How should we proceed in these two research areas in order to fully benefit from what we have learned? What are the main prescriptions offered by our research for executives?

Research on cognition is entering the mainstream also in the strategic management research. Moving beyond decision biases and basic cognitive maps, this research area provides a window into the cognitions of strategists, creativity in the strategy process, and the origins of dynamic capabilities. In this topic area, we address the following questions: What have we learned from three decades of work on managerial and organizational cognition in connection with strategy processes and strategy practices? How could we better integrate cognition research to our research on strategy processes and strategy practices? Where do we see the most important potential future areas?

Organizational and management innovations are the result of creativity of executives in their strategy practices. In this topic area we address the following questions: How do we innovate our strategy processes and practices? What are some of the innovations that different firms have developed? How should we enhance an organization’s ability to develop management innovations? How do process and practice related management innovations relate to the notion of dynamic capabilities?

The importance of organizations’ abilities and transform themselves even during the most difficult economic times have become increasingly important during the drastic changes in the business environment in the past few years. Multiple concepts have been developed and discussed outside the core strategy process and practice research streams for creating the required strategic flexibility for change. In this topic area we discuss the recent developments in the areas of dynamic capabilities and strategic agility.

TRACK E: Collaborative Strategizing for the Future

How can strategy researchers and executives create a research agenda for the future together? What kinds of strategy practices emerge from collaboration between managers and researchers? What methods of inquiry and analysis would be best suitable for collaborative research? What kinds of working methods can be created for co-creation and sharing of leading edge knowledge? How could be better link executives to become a reflective collaborative community for our strategy process and practice development?